March 8, 2011 Recipe #6: Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

Here's another great recipe from The 2011 Cookbook Challenge! Banana chocolate chip muffins - could this get any better?! Well yes it can! I added cinnamon (because when you have bananas, you have to have cinnamon - they just pair so well together!) and some shredded unsweetened coconut. Yummy! Even the non-vegans loved this recipe!

This muffin recipe called for unbleached all-purpose flour, but I decided to change it up a little bit. Instead, I used whole wheat pastry flour, which some people tend to use instead of all-purpose flour. It's definitely a healthier option! When making muffins, this substitution works great, but not for all recipes, especially cake/cupcake recipes (I'll fill you in on a future post). 

The addition of banana has two purposes in this recipe: 1) flavor and 2) binding of the ingredients to create a moist muffin (no one likes a dry muffin!). I used turbinado (raw) sugar rather than granulated sugar and there is a limited amount of vegetable oil. I happened to find nondairy semisweet chocolate chips at a health food store, which are quite yummy, and walnuts topped off this great muffin! Enjoy!